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05 March 2015

Do go see the Merchants of Doubt Movie. Los Angeles and New York March 6 opening, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC the 13th. More widely starting the 20th of March. The movie is inspired by the book of the same name, about how it is established industries can sell Doubt even in areas where the science is pretty well established.

The movie is not the book, nor does it make the mistake of trying to put the book on screen. But it does pick up many of the threads, and, most importantly, shows well how the Merchants of Doubt ply their trade. And it does so in an engaging way. One element of that being the extended visual, and practical, illustration of close up magic. Sleight of hand, misdirection, using shills (3 card monte was the example for this) all have their analogues for the Merchants of Doubt.

We see this item primarily through the flame retardants theme in the move. A doctor testifies to legislators about the harrowing death of a child, burned on the parts of its body that were on the non-flame-retardant pillow as opposed to the flame-retarded mattress. Once the testimony is given, the bill to lift requirements for the chemicals is promptly defeated. Except, it turns out, and the doctor confirms, that the events in his testimony never actually happened. But his story was far more compelling that mere recitation of facts about the (in)effectiveness of the fire-retardants. And that's the important part. (? For the doctor, at least, and his funders. See who that turns out to be.)

How did we get to fire retardants from tobacco? Cancer is a long stretch from fire, after all. But that's part of the tangled web of merchandising Doubt. Burning cigarettes start fires. Tobacco companies could have been told to develop cigarettes that didn't burn so long unattended. Rather than do so (potentially expensive), they pushed the argument, successfully, that the problem was the couches/mattresses/pillows. They shouldn't catch fire so easily; that was the real problem. If you can convince people that it's the fault of couches for letting themselves be burned, rather than of the cigarettes for burning couches (thence homes and people), there are few limits to what you can convince people of.

That's one of the methods of the PR flacks, and those methods are what the movie explores in a number of difference stories and ways. Climate looms large in the movie, larger than in the book. That renders it a little hard for me to say much about -- I have too much first hand experience with the people and events. What I can say from that first hand knowledge (or at worst second hand) is that it represents well how the people in the climate 'debate' actually talk. And I can say with some confidence that it represents them fairly. That's true whether it's Marc Morano (who's quite up front about the fact that he is attacking the scientists, not the science, and is pleased about the hate-mail that scientists get after he releases their email addresses) or Katharine Hayhoe (receiving end of some of that hate-mail, a scientist working on understanding climate who has been talking publicly to groups about creation care). Katharine is also a conservative evangelical Christian. One of the themes in the moving being about tribalism, so such identifiers sometimes are important.

I don't give away much, the meat is how you get to this point, in observing that I also like Producer/Director Robert Kenner's choice to end the movie with some optimism from Bob Inglis (6 time congressman elected from very conservative part of very conservative South Carolina) as to his belief that the problems of climate change are real (which got him massacred in his last primary) and can be addressed. The Merchants of Doubt have their successes, as does the magician. But, as more people see how the trick is done, the fewer who fall for it. I hope. See the movie and let me know in the comments what you think.

Since I was at a special preview, I'll write a separate note about that, and about some of the discussion we had with Kenner after the movie.

Welcome

I'll be trying what seems to be an unusual approach in blogs -- writing to be inclusive of students in middle school and jr. high*, as well as teachers and parents (whether for their own information or to help their children). To that end, comments will have to pass a stricter standard than I'd apply for an all-comers site. It shouldn't be onerous, just keep to the topic and use clean language.

I expect it to be fun for all, however, as you really can get quite far in understanding the world, even climate, by understanding this sort of fundamental. If I get too much less fundamental, let me know where I went astray.

* Ok, I concede that not many middle school students will get everything. Even a fair number of adults will find some parts hard to follow. Still, some middle school kids will have fun. And almost everyone will follow a number of posts just fine.

Please see the comment policy for details. And the link policy for details about that. The latter is more open than you might expect.

About Me

In my day job I work on the oceanography, meteorology, climatology, glaciology end of my science interests, but I'm interested in everything, science or not. So I've also been on stage in a production of Comedy of Errors, run an ultramarathon, and been to Epidaurus, Greece, to see a production of Euripides' Iphigenia among the Taurians
Prior to starting the current job, I was a post-doc in oceanography in the UCAR ocean modelling program, and earned my doctorate from the Department of the Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago (1989). My undergraduate degree involved Applied Math, Engineering, Astrophysics, and Glaciology.
Of course I don't speak for my employer, whoever that may be.